In this installment of Cabaret Crusades, which covers the 46 years from the end of the First Crusade, in 1099, to the beginning of the Second Crusade, in 1147, a cast of more than a hundred 200-year-old string marionettes from the Lupi collection in Turin enact Shawky’s highly original approach to staging and filming history; the puppets represent actual historical figures, and the project was filmed entirely in a church in Aubagne according to a cinematic shot breakdown.

The crusades come to life in Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s beautiful Cabaret Crusades. Inspired by the writings of Lebanese writer Amin Maalouf, Shawky’s film trilogy explores the horrors of the medieval holy wars in the Middle-East – from an Arab perspective. With a cast made up entirely of puppets, the third part, The Secrets of Karbala (2014), centres on the period between the 7th and 12th centuries, covering the crusades as well as a dispute between two Islamic sects. Beautifully made of handblown Murano glass, the puppets have amazing expressive power, making the scenes full of violence, repression and torture all the more awe-inspiring.

Wael Shawky’s epic marionette animation film offers a view on the history of the Crusades, retracing events that unfolded over a period of four years (1096-1099) and played a key role in subsequent historical developments, shaking to the core the Arab world and its relations with the West. This horror film of sorts provides a precise description of the places in the Middle East and Europe that formed the backdrop for the early Crusades, following the course of events after a Papal mandate sent half-a-million Franks on a military campaign to ‘reclaim’ Jerusalem from the Muslim armies. To bring these episodes alive, the production uses highly expressive 200-year-old marionettes from the Lupi collection in Turin, dressed in costumes of the Christian and Muslim armies of the time, allowing viewers to momentarily suspend disbelief and immerse themselves in a tragic history, distant in time but not effect.